Agnieszka's Dowry
Agnieszka's Dowry (AgD) - an American online and print poetry journal. AgD is published in Chicago by A Small Garlic Press, since March 8, 1996. Online and printed version commonalities and differences Online AgD appears as a set of interconnected web pages featuring graphics and poetry texts, including the up-to-date partial-content of any issue still open for submissions, as well as the full content of the closed issues -- as an expanding permanent web installation. Agnieszka's Dowry print version, mirroring strictly the online textual content, appears as a chapbook series. This is why both version share the same ISSN and formally differ only through the assigned unique ISBN designating each chapbook. In print, Agnieszka's Dowry content appears as alphabetized-by-author texts, while online the poems are grouped and sequenced for contextual effects and deliberately engineered interplay. Graphically, however, the online issues organize their content as hypertext in a series of circularly-linked poems lodged in rooms. All the rooms are directly accessible from the magazine's front page, in addition to being accessible via other hypertext links involving A Small Garlic Press's online catalog of chapbooks. Within the rooms, the links to individual texts are obscured/represented by art and graphics, yet once reading any one text, the navigation is made explicit to the user and made regular immediately below each text, allowing for rapid, predictable browsing. Despite the deliberate obfuscation with rich graphics on room entry, the online issue is optimized for textual browsing using the Lynx web browser, in fact, in a way that does not involve the use of the mouse or the tab to navigate through the content, just the spacebar and carriage return/enter. The online version strives to be user agent-neutral. These design and use dichotomies (rich graphical content vs. a textual browsing-optimized web installation; a permanent online installation vs. paper chapbook publication) are maintained consistently throughout. As of 2007 Agnieszka's Dowry has appeared in 14 online issues (Issue 14 remains partly populated, remaining open for additional submissions) and 13 printed issues/chapbooks (Issues 2 & 3 were combined as one paper volume). The online version is freely accessible. Idiosyncratic submissions sought An idiosyncratic type of submission sought is the occasional Letter to Agnieszka, which apart from embodying a form of poetic/short prose expression in well-crafted letter form indirectly conjures/invents Agnieszka. Another idiosyncratic albeit infrequent type of submission is tendering a well-known classic poem followed by the submitter's new original text, offered as juxtaposition. Accepted instances include a brief take-off on Christina Rossetti's long poem "Goblin Market" (the complete text is of course included), a free-verse meditation dovetailing with the "Holy Sonnet #14" by John Donne, and an English-language invention on Catullus' erotic poem "Number 51" (submitted in the original Latin), itself inspired by Sappho's Ancient Greek (Aeolic) fragment Sappho 31. A more frequent idiosyncratic installation is that of several poems presented as a sequence. Among such sequences, there is one Letter to Agnieszka comprising a series of letters, as well as sequences of contemporary English language haiku written by North American haikuists (the entire Issue 12, and elsewhere). Singularly, a technical essay "Forms in English Haiku" by the late Japanese and American haikuist Keiko Imaoka is featured in Issue 5. Her own haiku sequence, "Super K-mart", is lodged in Agnieszka's Dowry Issue 1. Editors and contributors Agnieszka's Dowry is co-edited by Marek Lugowski and katrina grace craig. Great majority of the content is contemporary non-haiku English-language poetry submitted from across the world. Agnieszka's Dowry never describes its contributors. Its content is exclusively the accepted texts and author names (in the print version), while online -- additionally -- renditions of artists' works and their names. References *Agnieszka's Dowry: EPC List of Poetry Magazines, Electronic Poetry Center, State University of New York @ Buffalo, http://epc.buffalo.edu/mags/ (Accessed 22 April 2007). *Agnieszka's Dowry: E-Journal Description, Journals in Electronic Format-UNC-Chapel Hill Libraries, University of North Carolina, http://eresources.lib.unc.edu/ejournal/description.php?EJID=89863 (Accessed 22 April, 2007). *Agnieszka's Dowry: Peter Howard's Electronic Poetry Magazines listing, United Kingdom, http://www.hphoward.demon.co.uk/poetry/maglink.htm (annotated links to electronic poetry magazines, a few esp. recommended) (Accessed 22 April 2007). *Agnieszka's Dowry: The Role of the Poet->Possibilities->Poetry Journals listing, Computer Writing and Research Lab, The University of Texas at Austin, http://locus.cwrl.utexas.edu/jones/?q=node/31 (Accessed 22 April 2007). *A Small Garlic Press: Poets.org, The Academy of American Poets, NY, NY -> Poetry, Poems, Bios & More - Illinois -> Literary Journals and Small Presses, http://www.poets.org/state.php/varState/IL ("This not-for-profit press produces chapbooks, broadsides, and Agnieszka's Dowry, a print and online journal.") (Accessed 22 April 2007). See also *Hypertext poetry External links *Agnieszka's Dowry *"Forms in English Haiku" by Keiko Imaoka, AgD Issue 5, 1996 (technical essay) Category:Publications established in 1996 Category:American literary magazines Category:Literature websites Category:Art websites Category:Online magazines Category:Hypertext